I have long wondered why I had such a gravitational pull to this artist and his work. I hope you're sitting down.' Another text came 10 seconds later: 'Prince is dead.'

And then on April 21, 2016, I was early for a dinner reservation at a restaurant in Berlin when my ex-wife (still a good friend) texted me: 'I have some really bad news. I never got a chance to go back to Paisley Park. Fans React To Prince's New Song 'Don't Let Him Fool Ya'.We noshed on one of the few food items on the menu at Paisley Park: pancakes, made famous in the Chappelle's Show skit about Charlie and Eddie Murphy's visit here in the 1980s. Prince didn't make an appearance that night, though people I talked to were convinced he was there, probably watching us from some secret window or spot in the high-ceilinged soundstage where about 200 of us danced to DJed Prince tunes till 3 a.m. I was actually in town to write a story about Prince, my musical idol, an artist I've literally listened to every single day for the past 30 years, and it was an auspicious coincidence I was in town for this rare event: the public allowed into Prince's palace. Jonathan Daniel/Gettyįive years ago, I happened to be in Minneapolis when word started to spread on Twitter that the Purple One was swinging open Paisley Park's doors that night for a party. Prince performs during the 'Pepsi Halftime Show' at Super Bowl XLI between the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears on Februat Dolphin Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. is releasing a remastered and extended version of his seminal album 1999 (originally released in 1982). Prince's unfinished memoir, The Beautiful Ones, was just released in October, and at the end of November, Warner Bros.

It is, in fact, a great time to visit Paisley Park and do a Prince-themed Minneapolis tour, as I did. I was about to take a tour of the complex, which many people consider a sanctuary, as did Prince himself. This was Paisley Park, Prince Rogers Nelson's two-story, all-in-one, 65,000 square-foot complex just outside of Minneapolis that has housed recording studios, a cavernous soundstage, a club, a studio for his fashion designers, a basketball court (shirts vs. In front of me was a bone-white, two-floor building akin to one you would find in a suburban office park.īut this was no ordinary, dull-looking office building. OK, it was just a chain-link fence-more 'purpley' than pearly-but to me they were majestic. 'Paisley Park,' from Prince's 1985 album Around the World in a Day

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